T44 FEDKEAL REPORTER. �tiens which were put upon the reissue by the supreme court, and that the characteristic of the invention is the trunk, with its hoofl and flap, constructed substantially as shown in the drawings, I am of opinion that the attempt to make the side boards of the G-ill trough, and the walls of the Gill case, to be substantially the same thing with the side pieces of the Wells trunk, cannot be successful. In view of these limitations, the aid of fancy is now required to con- vert the annular ledges upon the lower part of the Gill case into the hinged flap of the Wells trunk. This equivalence cannot be found, except upon the view which is stated by the plaintiffs' expert to be the one which he entertains, and which is that the end of the lower plate, in the Wells machine, "is present in any machine where there is a guide so related to the cone, and to the devices by which the fur- bearing currents are set in motion, that it governs the quantity of fur supplied to the lower part of the side of the cone, and acts in conjunction with a non-fur-bearing current which is admitted to the perforations at the base of the cone." �Neither are the trough and the walls of the hopper, and the ledges at the bottom of the wall, taken together, the equivalent of the trunk of the Wells patent. It is true that each structure aceomplishes the same resuit, of conveying fur to the cone so as to make a graduated hat body ; but the two conduits are not constructed in the same way. ihe plan of operation in these two sets of devices is not the same. In the Wells machine all the sides of the trunk co-operate with each other to confine the fur-bearing current, to guide it in a -horizontal direction towards the vertical section of the cone, and to deliver it in a shape which conforms to that of such section. In the Gill machine the bottom plate and the side guides guide the stream of fur to the upper part of a case or hopper of large dimensions, as compared with the cone, and then, the course of the fur being changed by the powerful exhaust current, it falls upon all sides of the cone, which is placed at the bottom of the hopper. There is a guiding and directing operation by the plates and deflectors of each machine; but the Wells machine guides direotly to the cone, while in the Gill machine the current of fur is conveyed in a trough, open at the top, to the upper part of a hopper, and thence restrained and deflected by the converging walls of the hopper, it is drawn to the cone by the exhaust. These differences are not merely formai, but make two radically different vehicles for the transmission of fur, and the reason for this dissimilarity of construction is beeause the respective methods by which the fur is driven to the cone are not ��� �
